296 



REPTILES. 



[Chap. IX. 



attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents 

 of Ceylon 1 , came to the conclusion that but four, out of 

 twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and 

 that of these only two (the tic-polonga? and cobra de 

 capello 3 ) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be 

 fatal to man. The third is the carawala 4 , a brown 

 snake of about two feet in length ; and for the fourth, 

 of which only a few specimens have been procured, the 

 Singhalese have no name in their vernacular — a proof 

 that it is neither deadly nor abundant. But Dr. Davy's 

 estimate of the venom of the carawala is below the 

 truth, as cases have been authenticated to me, in which 

 death from its bite ensued within a few days. The 

 effect, however, is not uniformly fatal ; a circumstance 

 which the natives explain by asserting that there are 

 three varieties of the carawala, named the hil-la, the 

 dunu, and the moi-carawala ; the second being the 

 largest and the most dreaded. 



In like manner, the tic-polonga, particularised by 

 Dr. Davy, is said to be but one out of seven varieties of 

 that formidable reptile. The word " tic " means literally 

 the 66 spotted " polonga, from the superior clearness of 

 the markings on its scales. Another, the nidi, or " sleep- 

 ing " polonga, is so called from the fact that a person 

 bitten by it is soon prostrated by a lethargy from which 

 he never awakes. 5 These formidable serpents so infested 



1 See Davy's Ceylon, ch. xiv. folk-lore in Ceylon in connexion 



2 Daboia elegans, Baud. with snakes, is the belief that a 



3 Naja tripudians, Merr. deadly enmity subsists between the 



4 Trigonocephaly hypnale, Merr. polonga and the cobra de capello, 



5 The other varieties are the and that the latter, which is 

 getta, lay, alu, kunu, and nil-po- naturally shy and retiring, is pro- 

 longas. I have heard of an eighth, voked to conflicts by the audacity 

 the palla-polonga. of its rival. Hence the proverb 



Amongst the numerous pieces of applied to persons at enmity, that 



